Little Simz
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When imagining Little Simz as a student, she can be pictured as the slyly cool introvert who, when not socializing with other creatives, is busy focusing on perfecting her craft. After picking up instruments in order to differentiate herself from your average rhyme-spitting rapper, the 21-year-old MC is able to provide her listeners with quality music that sends them on a dark yet energized trip. Before her album, A Curious Tale Of Trials + Personsdrops next month, Little Simz sits down with XXL to give us a little bit more insight of who she is. Get to know Little Simz in The Break. —Raven Irabor

Name: Little Simz

Age: 21

Hometown: North London

I grew up listening to: A lot of Lauryn Hill, Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, Missy Elliott, Jay Z, Nas, Biggie. The list goes on.

My style’s been compared to: I get "female Kendrick" quite a lot. I’m definitely not complaining. At the same time, I want to be the female Simz. I just want to be me. I get the comparison and I get why people would say that. Style-wise, I think moreso now than ever, it’s kind of hard to put me in a box or categorize what I’m doing because it’s so broad. And I’ve definitely broadened my horizons since my projects prior to my album.

Most people don’t know I: I think I started acting before anything. No, I started dance, actually. I started dance and then it was acting and then it was music. But dance was something I'd just done at my youth club and I used to teach dance when I was 14 to 19, 20 years old. I had my own dance group and then I got more into the acting stuff and I started doing things for TV. And then I put that on pause, because I really wanted to focus on my real passion, which is music.

My standout records/moments to date have been: I don’t even know if I have that, to be honest. I feel like, because I have got so much content and so much music online, it’s hard to to pick the one... Probably "Marilyn Monroe" actually, if any. Yeah, probably "Marilyn" or "Bars Simzson."

My goal in hip-hop is: I feel like it’s inspiring a lot more people to become that, or not even to become that but to think on that kind of level. Just do more good in the world and give back on whatever scale possible. So if I’m in a position to do that and I’ve got a big enough platform, then I will. I just wanna kinda encourage that at all times and just for people to be as selfless as possible, because we’re all one race and that’s the human race and we should help each other. And that's what I want to project.

I’m gonna be the next: I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve thought that far ahead. I’m kind of just riding the wave and just seeing where things take me and seeing what works and what doesn’t work. I change my mind quite a lot about things, which isn’t always a good thing. I could probably say one thing that I’m excited about is I definitely wanna be an entrepreneur and be a humanitarian and that stuff. But in terms of what comes after that, I don’t really know. I’ll figure it out nearer to the time.

Follow her on Twitter and check out her SoundCloud. Pre-order her album A Curious Tale Of Trials + Persons here.

Standouts: “Dead Body”

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